I dream of Jesus

The only box one should ever find themselves in is the one in which they plan to be buried. We all like to label things; it gives us a false sense of control. Like the renaissance tales of necromancy, the key to controlling the demon or spirit was knowing its name just as the key to controlling the djinn was leveraging them with God's will or trapping them in a bottle. Label it and keep it in a box.

According to the Qur'an, the djinn were God's counterpart to humans and second of the three intelligent races, the third being angels. Made of fire the djinn live formless and were endowed with free will just as man, which made them answerable all the same. The leader of this group, named Shaitan (is that you satan?) at first shared in the Garden of Eden only to be later cast out for refusing to bow to Adam as his was a power Shaitan saw as no more superior than his own.

The Qur'an was written sometime around the 4th century and with little variation shares much in common with the Old Testament of the Holy Bible and the Torah. Even the Hindu Vedas contain many similarities and like the Vedas, the Qur'an has survived over 1,500 years with no significant changes being made to it. Better still if you've read any of the early Sumerian texts like The Epic of Gilgamesh or The Descent of Inanna written some three-thousand years ago, you can see echoes of all four of these books and much Greek and Egyptian theology. There even exists similarity to some Native and Mesoamerican beliefs.

Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu; yeah I put them all in one pot. Names and genders are really the only things that have been changed. Outside of that they're all pretty much the same stories. Here's the quickest path from A to B; read The Epic of Gilgamesh, consume every little thing you can find about Jesus, then learn of the first Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. If you're more a Dianist read The Descent of Inanna, read up on the Virgin Mary, then look into Persephone.

By now you should be scratching your head a little and maybe even looking through Wikipedia trying to find the holes in my argument, but no matter as this is MY existential thought for the day, get your own.

One of the many common asides they share is the harnessing of energies to satisfy the will of the individual with varying degrees of acceptance and disdain. Consider the genie; a conceptual quasi-fantastic being issuing forth from in a billowing plume of colored smoke from some discovered lamp. We're all ok with the fantasy. We've all been asked the question of what would we do with a million dollars as if it's going to magically manifest when we give the correct answer and have at times even wished it would.

We want comfort and we want it fast, we want it easy. I've always said some will stop struggling just to feign comfort and to me it is that struggle which reminds us that we are alive. Others though, others will make a genie where they can't find one. Let's look at that.

The Arabic effeminate of djinn is jinneyah or "jinni", similar in structure and definition to the French word "genie", which came from the Latin word "genius". The Latin word, "Genius" was actually the masculine guardian spirit assigned to males at birth, Juno was the effeminate. Two thousand years later we got Barbara Eden. Names and gender change, but the story remains the same. Damn, and you thought you were breaking that cycle.

A person famous for harnessing the djinn and common to the Muslim, Judeo-Christian canon is of course King Solomon who practiced ruling with an iron fist covered in a velvet glove. Solomon exercised his power over this group through various means. Among some of the more impressive things Solomon used them for, besides building the Temple of Solomon was to chase escaped virgins and escort he and his friends on day trips to hell. Certainly he had the Seal of Solomon, That was just his leverage, but he also knew their names and who was good for what.

Essentially everyone carries a Seal of their own. Consider this; we all have friends we'll call on for particular tasks depending on their talents, abilities or dispositions. We put them in boxes and sometimes keep them on a shelf to be pulled when needed and they do it to us as well. This is where it's important to realize the need to stay out of a box. It doesn't matter how powerful you think you are; once you've made yourself predictable, you're just one of the flock.

Of course it remains important to be predictable in a few areas. The only truth is the one that is seen, not said. This is where you become impeccable with your word; but don't give out your word to just anyone as it becomes their seal to control you.

Strangely all this comes from a damned song I have stuck in my head. Does anyone remember The Dead Milkmen? How about their song, "I dream of Jesus"? Here, have some lyrics.

I Dream Of Jesus

by The Dead Milkmen
from the album, Not Richard But Dick

It was during my 2nd senior year when Mom found Jesus Christ. His
spirit was trapped inside an old Nana Shepard's bottle that Mom picked
out of the dumpster behind the 7-11. Mom brought the bottle inside and
sat it down on top of the TV. Then she told all of us kids to gather
round, and then she explained how Jesus lived in the bottle, and how,
if she wanted to, she could call him out to do her bidding. Sis said it
reminded her of an old TV show, and Mom slapped her and called her a
heretic. I didn't say anything, cause I just still remember the time
outside the Safeway, when it took 4 security guards to hold Mom down.

Jesus loves me, yes I know
For the Bible tells me so
When I'm weak he makes me strong
That's why I sing this song
If I die before I wake
Pray to him my soul don't take
Jesus loves me, yes I know

It wasn't long before people from all over the world started coming to
our house to see the bottle. At first I thought that this would make me
more popular at school. Instead it seemed to have the opposite result.
Kids would stop and point at me in the hallway and say, "There's the boy
whose mother keeps our savior cooped up in that tiny little bottle." And
then everybody started calling me 'Bottle boy'. And that really hurt. It
was also around this time that Mom began to attract some really weird
followers. Like that guy who never used deodorant and spoke only in
riddles. And that woman who collected 19th century hand made Amish
swimwear.

Jesus loves me, yes I know
For the Bible tells me so
When I'm weak he makes me strong
That's why I sing this song
If I die before I wake
Pray to him my soul don't take
Jesus loves me, yes I know

Mommy she loved Jesus, but not like others did
For she had a special bottle in which our savior lived
Mommy she loved Jesus, but not like others did
For she could unleash His vengeance by unfastening the lid

As the year went on, things went from bad to worse, and I realized that
if there wasn't a big change pretty soon, I'd never be able to get a
date for the prom. I couldn't go the year before because Mom belonged
to a church that considered dancing a one way ticket to Hell. But
that's a whole nother story. Anyway, by this point Mom had appeared on
the Richard Bey Show, A.M. Philadelphia and Geraldo, so there was
no use in me changing schools, since everybody knew who my Mom was.
Also we had to spend all the money from Mom's personal appearances to
hire a bodyguard, since by this point we were getting about 400 death
threats a day.

Jesus loves me, yes I know
For the Bible tells me so
When I'm weak he makes me strong
That's why I sing this song
If I die before I wake
Pray to him my soul don't take
Jesus loves me, yes I know

Then one night, I just couldn't stand it any more. While everyone else
was sleeping I crept downstairs. Slowly I went up to the bottle and
began to unfasten the lid. At first, nothing happened. But then the room
filled with a thick white smoke. I was glad my sister had taken the
batteries out of the smoke detector to put into her Walkman. When the
smoke cleared, I found myself face to face with the son of God, who was
much shorter than I had expected. He told me that since I'd freed Him,
He'd grant me one wish. And that's how I got to go to the prom with
Geena Davis. But you probably already read about that in People.

Jesus loves me, yes I know
For the Bible tells me so
When I'm weak he makes me strong
That's why I sing this song
If I die before I wake
Pray to him my soul don't take
Jesus loves me, yes I know

Mommy she loved Jesus, but not like others did
For she had a special bottle in which our savior lived
Mommy she loved Jesus, but not like others did
For she could unleash His vengeance by unfastening the lid
Mommy she loved Jesus, but not like others did
For she had a special bottle in which our savior lived
Mommy she loved Jesus, but not like others did
For she could unleash His vengeance by unfastening the lid